Tappin Tina

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Hey guys, I don't even know if anybody remembers me, it's been a real long time. But anywho...

before I start I want eveyone to know that my father is the king of knowledge when it comes to knowing about my car (or any car especially GM, hes been rebuilding engines and doing body work on cars since he was 14 years old, and is currently the service manager at a Chevy dealer in PA) but I still want some advice because he's in a state of denial because he has to find a way to get her intake leak fixed, and now solve my new issue, which is why I'm here.

Sorry that took so long. The issue is apparently "sticky lifters", which we are assuming was caused by sludgy oil (since he's been reluctant to take my car in and now she's 7,000 miles over due for an oil change). The engine started making a tapping sound the other day, after about an hour of driving. The tapping sounded just like she does first thing in a cold morning, tappin like a sun of a you know what, just the lifters makin noise cuz their cold, right? Right. But the tapping got louder, and I could feel it through the engine and the engine was lagging behind, she barely had any passing power on the highway. I took it home immeadiately and waitied for him to get home to listen to it. He came homw and listened, said he felt nothing wrong with the gas pedal and merely a tapping. He said the tapping was sticky lifters, so I needed to go to Pep Boys and buy "Marvels Mystery Oil" to clean my lifters. So I did, and I've only put about 60 miles on it since I added it to my oil. He said it may get worse, and it may go away. Either way it will stop, you just have to run it through the whole system. But my concern is meanwhile while I'm doing everything I can to get the shtuff through her system, the engine feels really sluggish, which he hasn't felt it to agree, and he says that the sticky lifters probably wont cause that, (is that true?) and I don't mean really sluggish, I mean a faint surge feeling and a grinding ontop of the tapping FEELING when I hit the gas. It's managble if I drive like a snail, but a pain on the highway. In addition, there is now a random knocking noise inside the engine, comes and goes when it pleases, and sounds like something is loose. What could this be? Could it be more than sticky lifters? He's waiting for a day that he can take my car in and fix it, but I want a second opinion. (not because I dont trust his, but because he knows it and wont tell me for some odd reason.) I really need to know if she's safe to drive because I'm gonna drive her daily until someone tells me otherwise.

The poor thing has 204,000 miles on her, 98,000 miles of those are mine from the past 2 and a half years. Yea, I put 40,000 miles on her a year, an average of 3,000 miles a month, and 110 miles a day on her. I love her so much and she has been excellent to me, she's my best friend and shes never ever let me down. The fact that her intake is leaking is the biggest problem she's ever had aside from a water pump. And one time I overfilled the coolant (her coolant has always leaked just a little bit and it's just gotten worse) so the pressure built up and cracked the tank. So now I'm faced with this tapping which I'm beginning to think isn't what it seems, because even though the oil is old she gets alot of constant 45-65mph driving and her oil looks perfect, so this is getting downright scary to me, I literally cry when I think something is wrong with her. I rear ended someone a few months ago and the first thing I tried to protect was her, not my girl. The first thing I said when I got out of the car when I faced the woman I hit was "OH!!!!!!!! MY F-ING CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PULL INTO THE PARKING LOT". And as I drove into the parking lot to wait for the cops I sobbed the whole time. That's how obsessed I am with her and I just thought I should share that with all of you.

any help at all as soon as possible would be peachy. danke

the picture is of her and my bosses HHR, they look really good with eachother.

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that night my dad changed my oil and after an hour of driving she stopped tapping, whoopty doo right? That night she was full of coolant, silent at a church mouse, and it appeared to have a slight increase of horsepower (even though I am at a constant loss of about 10 due to the fact that New Jersey LITERALLY has the lowest grade gas in the country. He changed her oil on Thursday, and by Saturday the coolant light was back on. Last night I started her ( it was really cold ) and she was tapping again, but the tapping went away. Also, last night the coolant was so low that the heat wasnt blowing. We added some and the heat was just fine. An hour after driving, the low coolant light is back on. And all day today she was tapping just like she was the other day. My dad says its a weak lifter, but he thinks that since it stopped it's not. But it's off and on which means it could be still but it's louder at sometimes than others. He told me the other night he didnt think it was necessary to do anything to her during the winter since doing an intake leak in the winter is not ideal. BUT COME ON! She definitely leaks too much and somethings goin on with a lifter. Its been like 4 days and I still have no replies so please can ANYBODY besides my father help me? PLEASE???

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7,000 miles overdue? Why did you wait so long? You could have had a shop do it for 30 bucks (at the most) yourself if your dad didn't want to do it). Also...what are you driving? No where in the post does it ssay.

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It sounds like the intake is leaking, and if you're loosing coolant at such a high rate, you're going to probably end up getting a blown head gasket before too long. If I were you, I'd tell your dad that you don't care about doing an intake job during the winter is ideal or not and for him to get off his tail and do it before you're rideless. Actually changning the intake manifold on a 3.1 isn't that hard of a job to do. Remove the intake hose, yank the throttle body off, pull the upper intake, pull the valve cover gaskets, then pull the lower intake. Clean everything up, installation is the reverse of removal. Takes about 6.2 hours to do according to Chilton Labor Guide and Mitchell 1, so you can realistically do it in about 4 hours. I've done three on 2 different 3.1s and a 3.4, took me about 6 and a half hours the first time, the last one I did on a 2001 Lumina took about 4 hours for me to do. And thankfully if you get the gasket from Fel-Pro, or Victor Rienz, the gasket design has been changed to slow down the tendency for the intake to blow on those cars with the trouble-prone engines.

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Im glad you guys cant wait a week for someone to give me advice thats ridiculous. No wonder i havent come on here in 2 years. It's a 99 Malibu, 3.1, I got the rims of an 03. And the spoiler is brand new, aftermarket. After everything was fixed it started leaking again, antifreeze in the oil for the 2nd time. So my dad paniced and took it in. He decided it was a cracked head gasket, then couldnt see any cracks and didnt wanna spend the 400 dollars to have them checked and took into thought that there was probably not a crack in the heads but in the block. he looked for a used one and in 2 hours had a candidate. a 99 cutlass. what suprised me about how long it took is that mine is from california, and in 99 california had a secondary air pump (apparently only on the 99's) which my car had and i needed, so i thought it was gonna be hard. but he found one and a week and a half later shes runnin a 99 cutlass engine with 68,000miles instead of 207. I was disappointed cuz I cant brag about the 207, but she runs better than ever now and I've never felt her so smooth. So thanks for the help, 76 trucker. I should have sent you a private message.